National Hospital, Kandy

National Hospital Kandy is the second largest tertiary care medical institution in Sri Lanka, established and administered under the purview of the Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition.

The fall of the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815 led to the establishment of Western (English) rule. Dr. John Davy was an army surgeon and physician to Governor Robert Brownrigg from 1817 to 1819. Davy came to Kandy with the British Troops and lived next to Diyawadana Nilame’s resident in Malabar Street.

A Military Hospital was built in a renovated existing building and was located at the site of the present “Kandyan Art Association”. Later it served both military and civilians especially for Cholera and Small pox.

After 1821, Indian labourers came to Sri Lanka for coffee and later tea enterprises. Civil hospitals were needed due to poor nutrition, Cholera and Malaria.

Once the civil medical department was separated from the military service, Colonial Surgeons were appointed to Central Province. This medical Board appointed vaccination officers who were responsible for vaccinating the public against small pox.

In around 1861, an infectious disease hospital was established in Deyyannewela (the small pox hospital). This pauper hospital was later expanded to become the General Hospital Kandy. One of the very first buildings of the Kandy Hospital was the Cholera ward, opened in 1866. It was located at the site of the current laundry in between the kitchen and the old KSM building.

National Hospital Kandy provides specialized health care services mainly to the Central Province which consists of Kandy, Matale and Nuwara Eliya districts and to all other provinces except Western and Southern. People are coming from all other provinces (Northern, North Western, North Central, Sabaragamuwa, Eastern and Uva) to seek expert care from National Hospital Kandy, as there are no highly specialized units in some of these remote areas.

The hospital is responsible for delivering a comprehensive range of secondary and tertiary specialist care and medical rehabilitation. Since we are a National Hospital, we teach the undergraduate medical students from Faculty of Medicine - University of Peradeniya. We are a training center for the Intern Medical Officers and post graduate trainees attached to the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine in Colombo. The Kandy Nursing Training School is also attached to the Hospital and practical training for them is also being provided by the Hospital.

Hospital has 78 Wards and 13 Special Units for inpatient Services. It also consists of 10 ICUs and 29 Operating Theaters. Out Patient Service, Specialized clinic service and an Emergency Treatment Units are also within the hospital. The bed strength of the hospital was 2405. In addition to that, Chemical Microbiological, and Histo- Pathological Investigations, X Rays, USS, CT, MRI, Exercise ECG, Physiotherapy and Pharmacies services are also available.

We have facilities to carry out advanced Medical Investigations such as CT scanning, MRI Scanning, Interventional radiography, Coronary Angiography and Cerebral Angiography.

Major Surgeries including Renal Transplants, Brain Surgeries and Cardiac surgeries are being performed in routine basis.

The medical and surgical specialties covered in the hospital include the following specialties covering almost all medical and surgical specialities under a single Institution.

Cardiology
Laboratory Services
Physiotherapy
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Microbiology
Plastic Surgery
Chest Medicine
Nephrology
Postgraduate Center
Dental Surgery
Neurology
Psychiatry
Dermatology
Neurosurgery
Radiology
Emergency Treatment Unit
Nursing School
Renal Transplant Units
Endocrinology
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Rheumatology
ENT
Oncological Surgery
STD
Gastroenterological surgery
Oncology
Urology
Gastroenterology
Ophthalmology
Neonatology
General Medicine
Orthopedic Surgery
General Surgery
Out Patient Department
Haematology
Pathology
Intensive Care Units
Pediatrics
Judicial Medicine
Paediatric Surgery